Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Alzheimer’s appears to spread
through the brain like poison in a river, according to a study
that's the first to track the destruction caused by an
abnormal protein implicated in the disease.

Researchers created genetically engineered mice with
abnormal tau protein in the brain’s entorhinal cortex, the
first place the substance shows up in people with Alzheimer’s,
according to a paper in the journal PLoS One. From there, they
mapped the mouse brains over 22 months as the tau spread across
neurons within the organ to other regions.

Tau is one of two abnormal proteins tied to Alzheimer’s.
The one more closely associated is beta amyloid, which can be
detected using imaging tools. While high levels of beta amyloid
can predict risk, the amount of tau found after death
correlates more closely with dementia, said Karen Duff, the
lead researcher. Knowing the path tau takes in the brain may
one day improve treatment, she said.

“There may be an intervention point that might prevent
dementia” if scientists can figure out how to stop the tau
from spreading, said Duff, who is a professor of pathology at
Columbia University Medical Center.

The place where abnormal tau shows up earliest isn’t
associated with dementia at all, she said.

Tau also is involved in other kinds of dementia, including
frontotemporal lobe dementia, Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body
disorder, Duff said. The spread is probably similar even if the
abnormal protein arises somewhere else in the brain.

Tau-Amyloid Interaction

It’s not clear from the research how tau and amyloid interact,
a question Duffy said she wants to study further.

When tau is normal, it supplies nutrients to nerve cells in
the brain. When it is damaged, it becomes tangled and shuts off
nutrients, causing the death of brain cells.

Beta amyloid is known to play a role in Alzheimer’s in part
because genes that confer higher risks of the illness have to do
with amyloid, Duff said. Today’s research suggests that it
somehow interacts with the tau that ultimately kills the cells.

“There’s some interaction, and it seems amyloid has its
detrimental effects through tau,” Duffy said. “There’s an
interaction at a fundamental level we don’t understand yet."

Closer study of the mouse model, as well as imaging tools
that would allow scientists to see tau accumulate in living
humans’ brains, would be helpful, she said.

The mice may also prove useful for testing interventions to
prevent the spread of the abnormal clumps of protein, she said.

“Mostly we wanted to mimic the early stages of
Alzheimer’s, because that could best give us some idea of where
we could target therapeutically,” Duff said. “And if we layer
on an amyloid model, we may also be able to see interactions.”

TauRX Pharmaceuticals Ltd., a closely held Singaporean
drugmaker, is working on an Alzheimer’s treatment based on tau,
and agreed in June 2010 to collaborate with German drugmaker
Bayer AG to make an imaging test for the tau protein clumps.